We Can Be Better than This

Binge-watching on Netflix has become my latest guilty pleasure. Not only do I have access to shows available only on Netflix, but I can catch up on series that I never knew about or had time to watch before. Right now I’m into Foyle’s War, a mystery series with Detective Christopher Foyle investigating crimes on the south coast of England during WWII.

A recent episode featured the story of a German couple who had fled Hitler’s Germany. Now living in England, they were targets of hateful anti-German sentiments of their neighbors. Then Italy also declared war, and a local Italian restaurant owned by a friend of Detective Foyle was set on fire, and the owner killed. The mob that lit the fire screamed anti-Italian slurs against their neighbor.

All this is history. We know it happened. We also know how Japanese citizens in this country were rounded up and sent to internment camps. It’s a shameful piece of not-very-ancient history.

Not good are many of the “comments” in response to it. In fact, they’re downright despicable. I know, the Internet teems with this kind of vitriol. Fine. Free speech and all that. Trolls can hide behind anonymous user names, so engaging in meaningful discussion is almost (I’m being optimistic here) impossible.

But the problem is when hate speech spills out into the streets and people think that it’s acceptable to talk this way – and even worse, that it’s OK to act
out their hatred against their neighbors.

It’s not OK.

I am convinced that all people of all religious traditions must speak out against this kind of hatred. Especially now, as some presidential candidates encourage it and use it themselves. If we’re going to remain a nation of welcome, inclusion, and religious freedom, we can’t allow this nonsense to go unchallenged.

Yes, we all have freedom of speech – even racist,misogynistic, homophobic, Islamaphobic, and all other kinds of hateful and phobic ranters.

But so do we. And we have to show the world that we can do better.

So speak out. Support our Muslim sisters and brothers who abhor the violence of terrorism as much as any of us. Speak out against any hate language anywhere. It’s not optional anymore. It’s a matter of life and death for the soul of our country.